Schmidt Brewery

The Schmidt Brewery sign hasn’t been around since the early 1990s, but it will make a triumphant return to the St. Paul’s Fort Road neighborhood at the end of June. The sign above the historic brewery on West Seventh will be re-lit on Saturday, June 21.

Friday marked a very interesting day in Minnesota history. On Jan. 17, 1934, the heir to the Schmidt Brewery fortune was kidnapped by the Barker-Karpis gang in St. Paul. Ed Bremer was held by the gang for 10 days, before his family paid a $200,000 ransom. When it came to crime eight decades ago, author Paul Maccabee says criminals had everything they needed right here in Minnesota’s capital city.